


The Phantom Reboot

by Soulfulbard



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Original Concept, F/M, Ghost Tech, Jack and Maddie are missing, Powered Armor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 13:57:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9823589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soulfulbard/pseuds/Soulfulbard
Summary: A re-imagining based on the original concept. Gadgets instead of ghost powers, and Danny and Sam share a psychic link. Add in a missing Jack and Maddie and Danny and Sam not meeting before the first episode and it's Danny Phantom like you've never seen it before.





	1. Episode 1: Bonding the Hard Way (Part 1)

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is a fan work created at no profit and for entertainment purposes only. The author acknowledges that Danny Phantom and related characters are property of Nickelodeon and all many concepts used here are the creation of Butch Hartman.

The school bell rang outside Casper High School, announcing the start of the first lunch period and the students were quick to take advantage of their one break from classes before dismissal at 3:15.

Some took advantage of it in different ways than others. For example, Danny Fenton and his best friend, Tucker Foley were staked out at the front steps, directly beneath a large poster advertising Casper's Fall Formal.

Tucker, the shorter of the two by a scant inch, was dark skinned with glasses. He watched the comings and goings through the door with an air of blind optimism and a bit too much enthusiasm.

Beside him, Danny, a pale boy with black hair, slouched against the railing, wearing the kind of bored expression people wear when they know the choice is between boredom and depression. He was just there to support his friend, even if he knew nothing would come of this plan, just like every other time that week.

A cute blonde in pink washed jeans and a white T-shirt came out holding a tray in one hand while securing her purse with the other. Tucker leaned toward her. “So the Fall Formal's is this Friday, and--”

“No.” She said dismissively and moved on down the stairs.

Tucker just shrugged and switched targets to the Asian girl with pig tails and an ankle length canvas skirt who was coming out at that moment. “Say, you know the Fall Formal--”

“Not a chance.” She said with an eye-roll

Undaunted, Tucker squared his shoulders and turned back to the door. A moment later, a dark skinned girl in a yellow blouse and orange skirt came out: Valerie gray, the girl Tucker really wanted to go to the dance with and also the only girl he'd asked three times already. “Hey Val...”

“You're not going to ask me again are you?” She stared him down. For one of the A-listers, she wasn't a shallow powder puff. There was steel in that gaze; not just the ice Paulina or Star mustered.

“Pretty much.” Tucker nodded without a hint of self consciousness or even simple shame.

Valerie's glare intensified and Danny wondered how Tucker wasn't catching fire at that point. “Get it through your thick skull, loser: I'm not going out with you! I'm never going out with you! In fact, I'm going with Kwan, so back off!”

Just then, the man in question, the tall, broad shouldered and gratingly handsome Kwan rushed up. “Hey Val! You'll never guess what! Debbie said she'd go to the dance with me! Looks like you're the only one in our group that's dateless, huh?”

Val's hand lashed out faster than any of them could track, grabbed Kwan, who was almost twice her size, by the collar and flung him aside. Her teeth grated as her eyes rested on Tucker once more. “Back off anyway.” She snarled before stomping off down the stairs.

Danny looked at Tucker. Tucker looked back and shrugged. “I'm wearing her down. Did you see how long she talked to me this time?” Without missing a beat, or letting Danny comment, her turned back to the doors.

The next girl to come out was the infamous Samantha Manson. Casper High had its share of Goths, but they were mostly sullen, quiet and kept to themselves. Sam was the opposite. She was the blaring air-horn to their quiet dirge, the tornado to their rainclouds. Everyone knew her if only to in as much as they knew to get out of the way when she was on a kick about one of her causes. As a general rule, she was best avoided in all other situations anyway.

Today, she was clearly gearing up for another battle, her combat boots beating a war cadence on the tiled floors of the school, her knuckles white as she gripped her lunch bag. And Tucker Foley was on a collision course.

Danny sat back to watch the show. “I'll miss ya, buddy.” He chuckled.

Tucker opened his mouth, but didn't get a single word out.

“Of course not!” Sam exploded at him. “Especially not when I'm the absolute last girl you asked! What's wrong with you?!” She then pointed angrily at Danny. “And you. I am not going to maul your friend for your amusement, so get that smirk off your face.”

“Boys.” She growled to herself and stomped down the stairs to an empty lunch table.

Bewildered, Tucker turned to Danny. “I... didn't say anything.”

Danny had the same look on his face. “Neither did I. What the heck was that about?”

“No idea. But she's right: she's officially the last girl in the school I haven't asked yet. Wanna go eat?”

“You asked all two-hundred and fifty plus girls to the Formal?”

Tucker grinned. “Some of 'em twice.” He held up two fingers for emphasis. “You'd better get on the ball, man. Otherwise, you're going to end up dateless.”

The two friends descended the stairs and crossed the courtyard, carefully avoiding the still fuming Manson girl and the A-lister table. As the they, Danny sighed. “What's the point, Tuck? Even if by some miracle, I do get a date, we both know that some ghost is just gonna show up in Amity and I'll have to ditch.”

“Why not just take the night off from ghost hunting?”

Danny made a rude noise. “Sure, and what, ask Jazz to patrol in my place? We've been over this; my parents left that equipment to me and Jazz before they disappeared and since Jazz doesn't even believe in ghosts, it's up to me to keep protecting the town from the ghosts until they come back.”

An uncomfortable silence passed between the two as Tucker struggled with whether he should say anything or not. Jack and Maddie Fenton had been gone over a year now without so much as a word to their kids or proof that they were okay. Jazz had accepted the reality and the siblings' new living situation with the Foleys, but Danny hadn't; not completely. Sometimes he still slept over at Fenton Works.

At length, Tucker decided it wasn't the time. “Yeah, I know. But listen: maybe you'll get lucky and there won't be a ghost attack.”

“Since when have I ever been lucky?” Danny scoffed.

“Fenton!” a braying, obnoxious voice carried across the courtyard. Tucker and Danny turned to see Dash Baxter, quarterback and bully extraordinaire, sprinting toward them with murder in his eyes. “Paulina turned me down for the dance and I'm gonna take it out on your hide!”

“Run?” Tucker asked.

“Run.” Danny confirmed and they both wheeled around in a flat out stampede for any hiding place they could find.

Danny groaned in frustration. “This isn't fair. Every time something bad happens to him, I have to pay for it? Oh man, could this day get any worse?” The theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind sounded from Danny's pocket as if on cue.

“Ghost alarm.” said Tucker. “You just had to ask, didn't you?”

“I need to keep my mouth shut.” Danny said darkly.

DP-DP-DP

High atop the roof of Casper High, a hulking form faded into visibility. He topped seven feet, six inches, all in gleaming titanium accented by his ghostly glow. The metal skull that served as his face grinned, illuminated by the flickering green flames of his hair as he brought a pair of binoculars to his eyes.

Through the red tint of the lens, he scanned the courtyard until a targeting reticule appeared, indicating that he'd finally gotten a visual on his target.

“Excellent.” He said in a deep, self-satisfied voice. “I knew there was a reason I decided to expand my hunts into the Human realm. So many new and exotic trophies to take.” He grinned as much as a skull could and brought up a bio on the target on his wrist mounted computer. “You will make an excellent addition to my collection, Samantha Manson.”

DP-DP-DP

Opening Titles

Danny Fenton always thought his parents were crackpot and conspiracy theorists. Until one day, they disappeared, leaving behind only the password to open their secret vault of anti-ghost technology and proof that their home, the town of Amity Park, was under siege from a dimension called The Ghost Zone.

Now, Danny has taken up their mantle as the secret protector of Amity Park. With the help of his friends, Sam and Tucker as well as his parent's cache of weapons and technology, he works to ensure that this home and the world at large are safe as the one and only: Danny Phantom!

DP-DP-DP

“Fenton! Where did you go? I owe you a pounding!” Dash ran past a row of hedges looking around for his favorite punching bag. He searched the entire area for a minute, including behind the hedges before continuing on, still hunting for another hapless nerd to punch.

Once he was gone, two crouched figures faded into view behind the hedge. Both let out relieved sighs.

Danny patted the buckle of this bright, yellow belt, a gold, concave disc with a dial encircling it and buttons around the rim. “The Fenton Ghost Battlin' Belt: not just good for ghost battlin'.” He said fondly.

Tucker peeked over the bush to make sure Dash was gone. “I seriously need to figure out where your parents got a source of ecto-energy so I can make one of those for myself. Imagine a life of no wedgies ever again!”

“Not a toy, Tuck.” Danny admonished.

“Oh yeah, it's not a toy when I don't want to get kicked to crud, but when you want to sneak into the girls' locker room...”

“For the last time, I was chasing the Box Ghost!” Danny defended. “Now I've gotta go see what set off the ghost alarm. Will you be okay here?”

“Hey, it's not me Dash wants to pound.”

As he stood, Danny snickered. “Yeah, it's Valerie that wants to pound you.” Before Tucker could defend himself, he turned the dial on the belt. “We're go for ghosts.”

The buckle lit up with a flare of green energy and the front and back split from each other, revealing minute holes from which a black and silver ooze with a ghostly glow issued. It flowed out over Danny, covering him from head to toe in a shimmer blob before shifting into a black jumpsuit with silver accents, silver boots, and silver gloves. His head was covered by a close fitting cowl that left his face exposed, lust like his parents' jumpsuits did. The belt itself turned silver as well as a DP logo on the buckle.

Danny pulled a pair of silver goggles with red lenses from a pocket obscured by the jumpsuit and put them on, completing his transformation into his alter ego: Danny Phantom.

With a nod to Tucker, he touched a button in his belt and flew off toward the source of the ghost alarm.

DP-DP-DP

Sam Manson sat at her table and tried to distract herself with homework. For once, it was homework she liked; creative writing, but even the idea of getting good grades for dark poetry she was going to write anyway wasn't enough to keep her mind off the problem creeping in the back of her mind.

Did Foley and Fenton notice?

She had gotten very, very good at hiding it over the years, but the day had just been so stressful. Paulina had been doing hit and runs all week mocking her for not having anyone to go to the dance with, accurately predicting that even the guys that thought she was attractive were too intimidated to approach her; then the biology teacher announced that they would start frog discretion in two weeks, something she vehemently disagreed with on many levels; and finally, she and her mother had another fight that morning. It was about the dance again. Pamela Manson insisted that her daughter was going, date or no date, and had gone as far as buying her a dress. It was, admittedly a nice dress, but it was the principle of the thing.

And so, when Foley went to asked her, knowing full well that she was the last girl he hadn't asked, it was a match on a powder keg.

Her fingers crumpled the paper she'd been writing on tightly, tearing ti from the notebook. That stupid dance! Why was it the only thing people could talk about that week? There were far more important things to discuss, like stopping the upcoming slaughter of innocent frogs, but nobody cared about that. All they cared about was who was going with who and mocking who wasn't going with who.

She growled and tossed the paper aside, trying to will herself to calm down. It hadn't been the boys' fault, really. She'd avoided Foley and his increasingly desperate attempts to get a date, any date, all week, so it wasn't surprising that she was the last one asked. And as for Fenton, she only had herself to blame because if she were being honest, she did resort to violence pretty often. Thickheads like Dash and Kwan didn't respond to anything less than high velocity contact with a combat boot.

It occurred to her to find them and apologize, but she quickly dismissed that. Cutting down on human contact was important, because not doing so was often unpleasant. Besides, maybe they hadn't noticed what really happened up there on the stairs, and might only do so if she brought attention to it.

Besides, she had a rep to maintain.

Malevolence.

Sam's eyes widened.

Avarice. Pride. Eagerness. Anticipation.

And they were all directed toward... her.

Sam looked up, following invisible lines that led up and up toward the roof of the school. Something or someone huge had just leapt off it. But they didn't fall. Instead, they seemed to float downward. Downward toward her.

Sunlight streaming from behind threw the thing into silhouette, but gleamed off metallic skin and the barrel of a wrist mounted gun. A gun which, like everything else; those dark thoughts, the things' descent—was aimed directly at her.

Panic froze her for a split second, as the monstrous creature landed across the table from her, skull face leering at her, green hair blazing. All around, the other students started screaming. And in the next split second, Sam's fight or flight kicked in. As usual, she picked 'fight'.

Fighting down a scream,s he instead put all that energy into grabbing the edge of the table and hauling upward on it as she stood up. The table flipped, right into the raised arm of the monster in front of her, sending the shot it intended for her into the air.

There was a squawk, and a robin fell from the sky, wings bound by a ring of green energy. Sam blinked at it, then remembered there were more important things to worry about. She took a step back, but forgot the bench was there, ending up sprawled on her back.

A concussive blast cracked across the courtyard as the table exploded into splinters and kindling.

The metallic creature held a smoking blaster pistol in its off hand. “You actually fought back.” He said with a hint of both surprise and delight. “I now I know I'm really going to enjoy hunting you, Samantha Manson.”

Sam goggled. How did this thing know her name? And more importantly, did it just say it was hunting her? As if she didn't detest hunting to start with.

“And I'm going to enjoy punting your sorry butt back to the Ghost Zone!”

Something black and silver flashed over Sam's head and slammed into the hunter, sending him stumbling back. Using the energy of the impact, that 'something' executed a backward flip to land on the bench that Sam had been sitting on, its back to her.

“Who are you?” The hunter asked rubbing at the dent the sudden attack left in his armor with a thumb.

The black and silver being grunted in annoyance. “Wait. You know her name and not mine? Come on, dude, I've only been fighting ghost in this town for like a whole year.”

The hunter shrugged.

“Danny Phantom? The Phantom of Amity Park?”

“Sorry. Doesn't ring a bell.”

Danny Phantom sighed dejectedly. “Inviso Bill?”

The hunter's eyes flickered with memory. “You're Inviso Bill? Wow. I thought you've be taller. But anyway, I'm not here for you... yet. Now step aside while I, Skulker, the Ghost Zone's greatest hunter captures his latest and most unique prize to date: the human whelp, Samantha Manson.”

“Is... he hitting on me?” Sam asked, quirking an eyebrow at Skulker's choice of words.

“What?” Skulker bellowed. “Ugh! I already have a girlfriend. I'm here for your pelt.”

“Was the 'ugh' really necessary?” Sam asked.

Danny folded his arms. “I'm too busy getting the heebie jeebies from the 'pelt' part. That's excessively wrong.”

“I don't care what you think!” Skulker shouted. “I'm just here for her. And if I have to go through you...” A huge cannon emerged from his shoulder and tracked in on Danny. “That just makes it more fun.”

The green blast from the cannon disintegrated the bench, but by that time, Danny was already flying backward. Pausing only to grab Sam by the back of her shirt, he then pours all speed into hasty retreat. “Hold that thought, Skulkie. I'll be right back.

Sam gagged as the way he was carrying her cut off her airflow and after a puzzled second, he swung them both around and arranged her, bridal style, in his arms.

“You're running away?” She croaked, rubbing her throat as she looked over his shoulder at Skulker in hot pursuit.

“'Thank you so much for rescuing me Phantom. How can I ever repay you for saving my life?' Ya know, just once I'd like to hear that. Just once! Well at least you didn't scream.”

She glared at him. “Not that kind of girl, ghost boy.” Despite the glare, she blushed just a bit.

Danny eyes widened. Maybe his little verbal play about how he'd like at least one pretty girl suggested something, but that didn't warrant blushing. Now if she'd known the mental image he'd gotten... His train of thought was cut off by a green explosion taking out a tree on his right.

“We gotta get you someplace safe until we figure out what that metal gorilla wants with you.” He said, brushing all other thoughts aside. He turned and, still holding Sam tightly with one arm, cocked the other and fired off a flare of green energy of his own. The suddenness of he move caught Skulker off guard and the blast hit him squarely in the face, sending him reeling back, head over heels.

Using Skulker's temporary loss of line of sight, Danny hit another switch on the Fenton Ghost Battlin' Belt and he and Sam faded from the visible spectrum. He ignored Sam's gasp and made a bee-line for the school.

“You really are the 'Inviso Bill' the local news can't shut up about.” Sam said in shock. “But wait, why is a ghost saving a human girl like me? Shouldn't you be haunting my locker or possessing me with evil intentions instead?”

“Look.” Danny said dryly. “My name is Danny. Danny Phantom, not Inviso Bill. And almost as important, I'm not a ghost.”

“Could have fooled me with the flying, the invisibility and the ghost rays.” Sam said, turning her head away from him because they were way too close be facing one another.

“Look, it's complicated.” Danny also tried to turn his head at the same time, deciding that he shouldn't be close enough to a strange girl to smell her toothpaste. Both of them blushed when he thought that. To get his mind off it, he asked, “Why are you being so difficult? It's like talking to a—“

“Wall!” Sam suddenly said.

“Yeah! A brick wall.”

“No, that school's brick wall! We're going to run into it!” she pointed to the rapidly closing edifice.

“Oh. Right.” Danny shifted him in his grasp and hit another button. A static tingling ran over their bodies and suddenly,t he wind that have been blowing against them disappeared. Satisfied, Danny tried to shift her back into the more comfortable bridal carry, but ended up clonking their heads together just as the passed through the wall.

“Ow!” They said in stereo. They emerged in the school's dusty, disused store room, floating invisible and intangible off the floor.

Then there came an electrical sizzle and all three of those things stopped being true. Suddenly visible, all too solid and back in the purview of gravity, they crashed to the floor with Sam on top of Danny. For good measure, their heads cracked together again and for a few seconds, they were senseless.

Danny groaned and rubbed his forehead. “What the heck happened?” It was at that moment that he noticed a distinct lack of silver glove covering the hand rubbing his face. And beyond it were the violet eyes of Samantha Manson staring at him in confusion.

“Fenton?!” She asked, pushing herself off him to sit hard against the wall they just flew through. “You're Inviso Bill?”

“Phantom! Danny Phantom!” He retorted absently as he looked down at the belt. “Oh man, I must have forgotten to set it to recharge this morning. Practice, flying to school, then flight, invisibility and going intangible for two must have tapped it out.”

Sam remained quiet, just watching until he remembered she was still there.

Anxiety. Fear. Shame.

The first two were directed at her. The last at himself. He'd accidentally showed her something he didn't want anyone to know about; something that gave her very real power over him if she chose to take it.

Contrary to popular belief in Casper High, however, Sam Manson wasn't cruel. Just the opposite, in fact. Her activism and vegetarian lifestyle wasn't about self aggrandizing, but genuine concern and compassion for her fellow creatures. And at the moment, she could tell there wasn’t a creature in Amity Park in need of more compassion than Daniel Fenton.

“Look.” She started out carefully. She did have that rep to uphold, after all, “I'll make you a deal: you saved me from that metal guy, so I won't tell anyone about this, okay?”

Danny gave her a wary look, as if she was going to bite him, then his expression turned worried. “Actually not okay.”

“Say what?”

“Not that I don't trust you to keep my secret.” He was lying, she could tell, but it wasn't malicious, “But I haven't held up my end yet. Skulker, whoever he is, is still after you. I wasn't kidding when I said I've got to get you somewhere safe until we figure this out.”

Sam tried to hide the surprised look on her face. At this point though, she really had no right to be surprised. What she'd known of Danny Fenton, that he was a lazy, shiftless underachiever who slept through most of his classes, was late to the rest, and would never amount to anything, went out the window the moment she found out his secret.

Not that she'd ever been close enough to tell before, but there was a nobility and an earnestness to him she never expected. She wasn't sure she should take advantage of that, even to save her own... pelt.

“But... isn't your belt broken now?”

Danny dug into his pocket and came up with a green ear bud. “Just a low battery. Besides my parents left me a lot more than just the belt. Let's just hope my friend is listening and can help us out with it.”

He tapped the ear bud, a modification to his parents' original Fenton Phones that Tucker had designed. “Hey, Tuck, you there?”

“Foley's in on this too?” Sam stood up and tried to dust off her skirt and top as best she could. “Seriously?”

Danny shrugged and waited for a reply. He wasn't disappointed.

“Hey Danny. Looks like we've got a new ghost for the files.” Tucker's voice came through.

“Yeah. Skulker.” said Danny. “Is he still out there?”

There was a pause as Tucker checked. “Nope. Ghost scanner is all clear.”

“Good. Listen, we've got a problem. Skulker's after...” He looked at Sam. Unless he was in his total lech mode, which made him impervious to fear, shame and common sense, Tucker was almost as scared of Sam as he was Dash. “... a student here. We've got to get her to a safe place until we can get rid of him.”

“Someplace with a ghost shield?” Tucker guessed. As much as he hated his friend lingering around the place, it did serve as the perfect headquarters for their extracurricular activities.

“Exactly.” Danny said. “Can you have the Specter Cycle and the ASK out front as soon as possible? We're going to need to cut the rest of school today.”

“You got it, buddy. Over and out.” Tucker said cheerfully.


	2. Episode 1: Bonding the Hard Way (Part 2)

Students from the first lunch period stampeded through the halls of Casper High, screaming about ghosts and metal monsters and explosions. Naturally, this encouraged their peers still in class to take up their panic and join them in a mad dash through the halls, searching for a safe place to hide, or at least a way out.

The PA crackled once before the voice of the vice principal and language arts teacher, Mr. Lancer spoke. “Attention students! While fleeing in terror is completely understandable, the administration would like to remind you that any classes skipped without properly signing out in the office will still count as unexcused.”

Oddly enough, that bought a strange kind of order to the chaos. Everyone was still screaming in terror, but they were now all screaming in terror on the way to the office. Hey broke down the door and pile din, jamming not only the office, but the hall in front of it in a knot of terrified, shrieking madness.

On the other side of the school, Danny and Sam poked their heads out of the supply room door and found the hall empty.

“Say what you will about Tuck, but he knows his way around electronics.” Danny laughed as he tried to envision Lancer's face when he heard his own voice practically order the student body to trample him.

Sam laughed too, in spite of herself, but once they were out in the deserted hall, she planted her fists on her hips. “Alright, so what now? What if that crazy ghost is just waiting outside?”

As if in answer, the doors at the end of the hall were thrown open and Tucker ran in, lugging both his backpack and Danny's. “Bike's parked outside guys.” He said by way of greeting. Busy rummaging through Danny's pack, he didn't even bother to look up.

“Now, from what I overheard, this Skulker is a hunter. So it's not a long shot that he might have camouflage, even a way of not getting caught by the ghost alarm, so I brought some...” As he pulled what looked like a chrome and green flashlight from the pack, he finally looked up and his eyes grew ten times their normal size behind his glasses.

“D-Danny. That's Sam Manson.” He said as if he was warning the other boy that there was a poisonous spider on his shoulder. His eyes darted around, mapping out exits. “Why didn't you tell me the person you were helping was Sam Manson!?”

Sam folded her arms and rolled her eyes. “Contrary to popular belief, I rarely bite.”

“Oh yeah?” Tucker, challenged, panic overriding self preservation, “Back in grade school, Danny span me too fast on the merry-go-round and I threw up in your lunch box. You bit me and knocked me off the monkey bars for that!”

The revelation and memory flooded back to her and Sam chuckled and grinned sheepishly. “Who would have thought my life would even up depending on the one person I actually bit?”

Danny raised a hand. “Uh, you bit me too. Remember, third grade art?”

She didn't but he did and she couldn't help be feel a little embarrassed. “You shouldn't have stolen my blue paint.” She defended lamely.

“Man, I signed up to kick ghost butt, not get bitten.” Tucker warned.

“She's not going to bite you!” Danny said exasperated. “I'm pretty sure she's grown out of that.” But when he glanced at her, she was making it a point to smile at both of them, showing teeth. Lots of them. “... Fairly sure.”

Tucker tossed the flashlight and bag to Danny. “I'm outta here.” He would have run for it, but Sam caught him by the collar, turning him around.

“Relax, I'm a vegetarian now.” She said. “And besides, from the sound of it, I really do need your help. Truce?” She held out a hand.

There was a long moment as Tucker considered his options. On the one hand, this was Sam Manson, the scariest girl in Casper High and someone he didn't owe anything to. But on the other, it wasn't her fault Skulker was after her and what kind of guy would he be if he just tossed her to the wolves? Really, the question answered itself, so he took her hand and shook it. “Truce.”

“Took you long enough.” Danny muttered. “So what did you bring us?”

Now that he wasn't going to get bitten and the subject was technology, Tucker felt in his element. The same cocky grin he got when asking girls out reappeared. “Party favors.” He pointed to the flashlight. “The ecto-saber there, plus the Fenton Grappler, a couple of ecto-guns, and of course, the Fenton Thermos.”

He pulled each out to show them in turn and got an incredulous look from Sam when the last turned out to be an actual thermos covered in circuits diagrams with a green, glowing rim.

“The Fenton... Thermos? Really? Are ghosts allergic to hot soup or something?” The two friends looked to one another, and by unspoken agreements decided it was too complicated to explain to her at the moment. “Hey!” Sam shouted, offended. “I'm right here, ya know?”

“Huh?” Both boys asked at once. Sam face palmed. Twice in one day.

Danny blinked once, then turned back to the thermos. “I doubt that'll be much use. Skulker is too strong to just go without a fight. We need to weaken him and I can't do that and keep hm from getting Sam at the same time. Let's just focus on getting back to Fenton Works for now.”

The others agreed and they headed out the door Tucker came in through. There, are the end of the sidewalk, was Danny's trust red motorbike with a rickety sidecar attached.

“That's the Specter Cycle?” Sam asked. “I've seen you ride that thing to school. I was kind of expecting some kind of flashy super-bike or something.”

“And you weren't expecting this!” Skulker's voice sounded from the thin air about fifteen yards ahead of them and too the right. A green, glowing net appeared, already in flight, and landed on Sam, trapping her. Laughing victoriously, Skulker faded into view. Only then did the ghost alarm go off.

“Called it.” said Tucker.

Skulker ignored him. “Ha! That was a foolish move, whelp: leaving the protection of Inviso Bill and trying to blend in with these two pathetic humans? I thought you were smarter than that.”

Looking from the net draped over her to Danny, Sam scowled. “So did I, actually.”

It took a beat for Danny to realize that was his cue. “Oh yeah.” He twisted a ring on the ecto-saber and pressed the button. A sword of glowing, green light formed, humming gently when it moved through the air. Almost casually, he swung it at the net. Sam shrieked and closed her eyes tightly as the blade came far too close for comfort. But when her eyes opened again, the net came apart into pieces.

Both she and Skulker was stunned by this development.

“How did...” Skulker started then grunted in frustration. “Never mind, I've got other ways of catching my prey.” A gun with multiple rotating barrels extended out of his gauntlet and began to spin up to speed before firing bolts of green energy.

Danny stepped up, swung the ecto-saber and intercepted each shot with the blade, deflecting them all around the front entrance to the school. What he didn't notice was that on his back stroke, he was once again coming dangerously close to hitting Sam, who ducked and dodged in frenzied terror.

Finally, Skulker's gun clicked on empty and he snarled. “I don't know who you are, whelp, but your luck can't hold out all day.” With that, he deployed a pair of shoulder mounted cannons that started to charge..

“Bring it.” Danny flourished the ecto-saber, once again almost hitting Sam.

Sam finally had enough. “Stop it! You've come way closer to killing me than he has with that thing!” To her surprise, Danny just laughed. “What's so funny?” she asked dangerously.

“It's a ghost weapon, Sam.” he explained. “It can't hurt you, it just passes right through.” He demonstrated by poking the blade into her exposed midriff. When nothing happened, he did it again, chuckled, then started drawing patterns with the glowing blade.

Looking behind him, Sam saw Skulker's first cannon fire. “Give me that!” She said, exasperated. Snatching the blade out of his hand, she stepped forward, swung the weapon on guard, and deflected the blast right back into Skulker's midsection. The ghost hunter was knocked on his back, sending his second shot straight up.

The scintillating sphere of power traveled up to its zenith, then plunged straight down, exploding on impact with Skulker's arm. His wrist-mounted computer went one direction and Skulker went the other, slamming into a tree so hard that the Ghost Zone's Greatest Hunter was knocked senseless.

Danny looked from Skulker to a very smug looking Sam. She raised and eyebrow at him. “Beginner’s luck.” He muttered before grabbing her wrist. “Come on, we've got to get out of here before he wakes up!”

They ran for the bike, making it in plenty of time. Danny handed Sam his helmet and hopped astride the bike, only to find that Tucker was not in the side car. Instead, he was across the street, fishing something that was still smoking out of a hedgerow.

“What are you doing?” He called.

Tucker held Skulker's computer aloft and ran back to his waiting friend. “This might come in handy. Get it? Handy? It got blasted off his hand?” Both Danny and Sam groaned.

With Sam riding behind Danny and Tucker in the sidecar, they sped off toward Fenton Works.

As they disappeared around a corner, Skulker dragged himself up, grimacing at the smoldering dent I his chest and the mess of severed and burnt wires hanging out of his arm. He glared after the retreating team. “Run while you can, whelp. You're only making the hunt that much more enjoyable.”

Something cracked above him and a dead branch landed directly on his head, causing him to moan in pain.

DP-DP-DP

There was no missing or mistaking Fenton Works. On a row of perfectly normal brownstones, there was only one with a neon sign out front and a massive metal dome on top, sprouting all manner of ghost detection apparatus. The sign hadn't been on in almost two years, but that didn't make the place one bit less conspicuous.

Danny pulled his bike up as close to the building as he could and everyone dismounted.

“Wow. I remember this place.” Sam said with a voice filled with nostalgia. “Every Halloween, your dad would pay cold, hard cash as a bounty to any kid that bought him any of their candy haul that had fudge in it.”

“Don't remind me.” Danny said with heavy lidded eyes as his mind conjured images of his father in his hunter orange jump suit sitting in a pile of candy, shouting 'yippee!' and throwing it up in the air to let it pelt down on his head like Scrooge McDuck. Sam snorted and Danny once again wondered what she kept laughing or blushing, or getting mad at.

He let them in, and headed to the kitchen where he kept a cooler full of snacks for when he and Tucker we working on his ghost gear, or when he snuck over there to sleep on bad nights.

The mid levels of the house were normal enough; normal kitchen, normal dining room,normal living room. Well, the living room was normal once. Now, it was littered with the wreckage of rebuilt and cannibalized ghost gadgets.

Sam looked around with interest, picking up what looked like a metallic label maker bearing the legend 'Fenton Ghost Peeler' and examining it. At the same time, Tucker cleared space on the couch and the surrounding floor for everyone to sit before going over to rummage in a pile of stuff on the coffee table.

“If you're going to be a temporary member of Team Phantom,” He said, pulling some objects of interest free of the debris, “You're going to need some gear of your own.”

“I'm pretty good with the laser sword.” Sam pointed out.

“But Skulker's good with lots of guns to let himself stay way out of range of an ecto-saber.” Tucker pointed out. “Too bad we don't have a portable power source light enough for a hand-held ghost shield. Speaking of which; hit that button on the wall over there.”

Sam wandered over to the wall and found a full on control panel. Luckily, there was one button clearly labeled 'Ghost Shield'. When she pressed it, the sunlight streaming in through the windows tinted green and the whole house was filled with a low, steady hum.

“You are now completely safe from Skulker... as long as you never leave and the power doesn't go out.” Tucker declared.

“Thanks.” Sam said dryly.

“And for all other times, we've got you covered.” he continued, handing her a belt with a mechanical buckle and a pair of green and black ear mounted transceivers.”

Sam regarded them for a moment, then nodded with approval. “I like the earpieces at least. They could pass as techno-goth earrings. The belt's kind of tacky though.”

“That belt might save your life.” Tucker said sagely, taking a seat on the couch. “That's the Specter Deflector. It shocks and weakens any ghost that touches you and blocks some of their powers. The other two are Fenton Phones. They're supposed to filter out ghost noise, but we just us 'em to keep in touch.”

“And listen to our MP3 players.” Danny emerged from the kitchen with cans of soda and bags of chips in his arms. He took a seat on the floor between the coffee table and the couch, leaving the remainder of the couch to Sam.

She took her seat and looked around, then down at the devices Tucker just gave her. With a bit of hesitance, she put the Fenton Phones in. “You guys really have this whole 'real life Ghostbusters' thing going on here, don't you? How long have you been doing this while half the school just thought you were losers?”

“Only half?” Tucker asked.

“I was trying to be nice.” Sam said.

“We've been at this over a year. Since the summer before Freshman year.” said Danny, looking suddenly glum.

Sam frowned at him. She didn't like seeing him like that, and yet, she wasn't exactly the person known for cheering others up. “I don't see why you're ashamed of that. It think it's really cool.”

Hope. Pride. Quickly crushed by shame.

She recoiled from the feeling. “Danny? What's wrong?”

He looked up from the bag of chips he was trying to open. “Do you remember any ghosts around Amity Park until a year ago? As in actual attacks?” He waited for her to shake her head. “Right. Well my parents did this for years and no one noticed. Then they disappear and I'm trying my best and by now, we're not even all that surprised there's a ghost hunting my classmates.”

“Let's focus on that.” Tucker cut in, not liking to see his friend in such a state. “We still need to figure out what Skulker wanted with you.” He pulled out the computer salvaged from Skulker and started to splice his PDA into it.

Th distraction of the mission seemed to drag Danny out of his funk. “He kept calling you stuff like 'exotic' and 'unique'. But ghost generally don't see humans in general as anything special... Any idea what's so different about you, Sam?”

Her gaze dropped to the floor. She knew their secret, after all, so it was only fair. Plus after the whole 'ghost hunting' thing, hers wasn't likely to be met with much skepticism or freaking out. This didn't make it easy to say. “Well, let's see... I'm an ultra-recyclo-vegetarian, I can hear peoples' thoughts, and I'm a goth.”

Both boys froze. “What was that?” Danny asked.

“I'm a goth?” She asked innocently.

“No... before that.”

“I'm an ultra-recyclo-vegetarian?”

“No.” said Danny. “The part in the middle.”

Sam forced a small laugh. “now don't go freaking out over it.” She was looking at Tucker, “It's not like I can go into your mind and rummage around in there. It's just that when I'm near someone, I pick up things: thoughts, mental images, sometimes dreams—whatever's right on the surface.”

She fidgeted self-consciously. “It's why I don't hang out with anyone at school: it's not fun getting snippets of what people are really thinking all the time.” She watched the two boys carefully as they digested this information. Well, Danny digested it, Tucker distracted himself by decoding Skulker's computer.

“That does explain a lot of the weird reactions you had all day.” Danny said. “Um... sorry for any of the things I thought that you didn't like?”

“Not like you can control it.” Sam relaxed a little because she could tell he was honestly concerned that his private thoughts might have hurt her feelings. “And I didn't pick up anything really bad.” They shared a small smile.

“Except Skulker.” interrupted Tucker, holding up his PDA. “It looks like your mind reading is kind of like brain sonar. Instead of just broadcasting brainwaves like everyone else, your brain produces a unique carrier wave that basically pings off other people's brains and brings information back to you.”

“How could you know all that already?” asked Sam, staring in confusion.

“Because Skulker does. That carrier wave is how he's been tracking you.” He tapped furiously on his PDA. “Luckily...”

Sam's eyes widened. “Hey! Your brains both suddenly shut up!”

Tucker span his PDA on his finger, then blew on it like he was a gunslinger with his weapon. “Not a problem. I just added some code to your Fenton Phones to block your signal, coming and going. As long as you're wearing them, Skulker can't track you and you don't have to worry about hearing stray thoughts.”

A long, awkward moment passed as Sam just stared into space, hearing, for the first time since her powers appeared at the end of eighth grade, nothing but her own thoughts. The two boys glanced at each other , then leaned forward, concerned.

“Sam?” Danny ventured.

It was as if a switch was pulled. Sam snapped out of her own little world and suddenly, she'd wrapped both of them in a tight hug that pulled Tucker clear off the couch. “You guys have no idea what this means to me! Thank you so much!” There were tears in her eyes, which would have made them both uncomfortable if she wasn't cutting off their oxygen.

“Sam.” Tucker rasped. “C-c-can't breathe.”

“Oh!” Sam let them both go and they landed on the floor, Tucker on top of Danny. “Sorry. It's just that... well I guess you had to go through it to understand.

They untangled themselves and Tucker sat on his heels, rubbing this throat. “Now I kinda wish I'd been bitten instead.” He chuckled. “But you're welcome.”

“So, I guess the crisis is averted then.” Sam said, throwing herself down on the couch and stretching languidly. She'd never felt so free in her life.

Tucker picked up his PDA from where it had landed under the couch. “Not exactly. Skulker can't track you, but he doesn't really need to. He's got detailed files here about where you live, where you hang out; the whole nine yards. He can just stake out the places you frequent and attack you there.”

“But Tuck,” Danny piped up, “We have his files now. He doesn't know this.”

“Danny, do you honestly think he's not smart enough to make a back-up?”

DP-DP-DP

Skulker grinned cruelly as he fitted his replacement wrist-computer into place. “You think you're smart, don't you, whelp?” He muttered to himself. “Well I am always prepared. And as soon as I download my back-ups...”

The computer beeps and displayed a message. 'Download complete'.

“Ha! You will be as good as mine.”

Another beep. Another message: 'Last back-up performed January 23, 2009.'

Skulker just stared at the screen for a minute. That was long, long before he'd received his intel on the Manson girl. “You have GOT to be kidding me.”

DP-DP-DP

“So Skulker will definitely still be on your trail.” Danny said with a frown. “That means you're still stuck with us for a while, Sam. At least until he's safely back in the Ghost Zone.”

Sam folded her arms and stared at the ceiling. “So what's the plan to get rid of him?”

“It won't be easy.” Danny admitted. “I need to wait for my belt to recharge to have any hope against him. And judging by how things went earlier, we'll need way more advantages than that.”

Tucker suddenly brightened. “Like if we could lure him into a trap?”

“That doesn't sound doable.” Sam said. “If he can hide from your ghost radar thing and turn invisible, we won't even see him until he's ready to attack.”

“Here me out on this, guys:” Tucker tapped on his PDA some more. “Skulker can't track Sam with her brainwaves anymore, so he's going to have to follow his intel, which we have. If we do things different from Sam's schedule, he won't be able to find her. That means going to your classes a different way and staying out of your house as much as possible.”

“I'm liking the second half of that plan.” Sam smiled. Her house was where her parents were, and having a break from them was always welcome.

“Skulker also doesn't know that Danny is also Danny Phantom.” Tucker continued. “So if he sticks to you like glue the whole time, pretty much any attack Skulker launches will be like our own floating ambush.”

“Sticks to me like glue?” Sam asked with a glance in Danny's direction. She'd been a loner for so long, she didn't know how she felt about suddenly growing a best friend, even a fake one that was actually a bodyguard. Danny looked back and she didn't need to read his mind to see that the look she was giving him made him nervous.

Oblivious to all this, Tucker continued. “It's actually not that hard. Turns out you two have most of your classes together anyway. Who knew?”

Danny rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. This was odd, someone being forced to hang out with him. The last time that happened was when his sister, Jazz was forced to take him trick-or-treating. “So,” He failed to meet Sam's eyes, “I guess we're going to be seeing a lot of each other over the next couple of days.”

Sitting up, Sam took pity on him and offered a small, friendly smile. “I guess it won't be so bad. If I'm going to start having friends again, I could do worse than the towns' secret superhero and his sidekick.”

“Please, I'm his Mission Control.” Tucker corrected. “But good, we're all set then. We all ride to school together, you two go to class together, and in the afternoon, we all hang out together. Total bodyguard coverage. Now we just have to buy your tickets for the dance and--”

“What?!” The pair exclaimed as one.

“We talked about this, Tuck.” Danny admonished.

“And who said I even wanted to go to the stupid dance?” Sam added.

Tucker held up his hand defensively. “ Sorry guys, but during Skulker's attack, I ended up hiding under a table next to Val and managed to get her to agree to go with me. Since I'm going to be there, you two should be there too so Team Phantom can be at full strength. Besides, ghosts are more prone to attack large concentrations of emotional energy and the dance is going to be boiling in it.”

After some deliberation, Danny sighed. “He's actually right, Sam. If Skulker doesn't attack between now and Friday, the dance will be the most likely time for him to and we can stack the deck in our favor knowing that.” He fidgeted nervously from his seat on the floor. “So, just on the assumption that it might be your chance to get rid of the ghost that's hunting you... wanna go to the dance with me?”

Sam couldn't help to be impressed. Danny actually managed to affect a hopeful smile as if he was asking a girl he would actually like to go with. At the same time, she just felt bad. If she was being honest with herself, she really would have liked to have been asked to the dance (barring being Tucker's bottom-of the barrel choice), and her mother had actually gotten her a dress she liked, reasoning that Sam going was more important than forcing Sam into the typical girly dresses she normally picked out.

But it felt wrong to go with someone who was only asking out of some hero complex. If she wasn't in danger of being captured and skinned by an extra-dimensional entity, she would be staying home Friday to be sure. Having the two boys pretend to be her friends was one thing, making Danny pretend to be her date was another.

At that point, she realized she was taking way too long to answer. Danny and Tucker were staring at her. Danny in particular had an odd look on his face. No doubt it was a hit to his confidence that a girl might still say no to going to the dance with him even under pain of death and taxidermy.

It didn't change the fact that it wasn't right. She had to say no.

But her life was on the line and Tucker's logic was sound. She needed to say yes.

Of course, she thought of herself as a principled person. If it meant putting her life on the line to do the right thing, so be it. No.

It did seem to really be bothering Danny though, and this wasn’t the way she should treat the person putting their life on the line for her. Yes.

No.

Yes.

No.

“Yes.”

N—wait. Did she just say that last part out loud?

“Great. He'll pick you up at seven.” Tucker declared.

Yes. Yes she had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got into kind of a hot streak here, so Part 2 is up really quickly. For people here looking for romance, you should know that my philosophy for it is to go slow and grow the relationship instead of going for the big, instant declarations of love. I also firmly believe that a good plot comes first and romance is something that weaves into it, not something that takes it over, or is a side plot. Enjoy the story and watch the progression and your patience will be rewarded.
> 
> A lot of important stuff happened here to influence later episodes, so read carefully guys, there will be a test later.
> 
> Skulker's back-up problems are courtesy of my clients, who feel that backing up a file once is enough, no matter how much you change that file later.
> 
> Next Chapter: Bonding the Hard Way Part 3 – It seemed like such a simple plan, but the interference from Jazz and Sam's parents make going to the dance together ten times less simple and one hundred times more awkward!


	3. Episode 1: Bonding the Hard Way (Part 3)

It was after school the next day and the trio was in the mall, because Sam's normal routine (courtesy of Skulker) called for her to be in the park. Said girl was in unusually high spirits, both for her reputation, but for someone being hunted by a monster from another dimension.

“..Sam?” Tucker looked over at her smiling face, “You're starting to scare us.”

She gave him a glare and a smirk. “I thought I already scared you.” Her tone was unreadable and made him jump. He jumped again when she started to laugh. “Sorry Tucker, I couldn't resits. Wow, one bite really went a long way.”

Danny was laughing too. It's not just that; it comes from the ghost hunting: the fact that even weak ghosts can overshadow even innocent looking things can make ya kinda jumpy.”

“I do not look innocent.” Sam shot back.

“Never said you did.” Danny held up his hands defensively. “But it is kind of weird: we've both seen you around school and I don't think either of us have seen you in this good a mood.”

Sam reached up and swept her hair aside to touch the Fenton Phone in her right ear. “You try staying in a good mood when everyone around you is broadcasting stupid, teenage drama or how much of a goth freak they think you are.”

“You could always stop doing the goth thing.” Tucker pointed out.

“No way!” She folded her arms. “This is who I am and I like it that way. They're the ones that need to change their minds.”

“She's got a point there, Tuck.” said Danny. “They call you a techno-geek and you're not looking to give up your PDA anytime soon. Even though at this point, you should just use a smart phone.”

Tucker looked agog. “A smart phone? A smart phone?! Danny, this,” He held up his PDA, “This my friend is a hand held computer. It does work. A smart phone is just a phone that runs apps. Don't diss the PDA, my friend.”

“Okay, fine.” Danny rolled his eyes.

Sam chuckled at the pair. They'd spent virtually the entire Thursday together with the two boys ostensibly playing bodyguard, but pretty much just hanging out as the normally did, except with her included. And beyond a dust-up between her and Tucker over his lunch (three Salisbury steaks, including one Dash threw at Danny), they'd all actually gotten along pretty well and to any passers by, it probably just looked like three of the school's most notorious outcasts had finally banded together.

“Hey.” She stepped in to break up what was promising to turn into a small squabble. “Check it out, Dead Teacher 2 is playing at the multiplex. Wanna go check it out? I'm buying.”

“Dead Teacher 2?” Tucker's face brightened from the sourness of defending his beloved PDA, “Sweet! We were gonna go last week, but then a ghost overshadowed the popcorn machine and by the time we were done, it was sold out and we got stuck watching Sayonara Pussycat.”

Sam made a face. “Ugh. Why didn't you just give up on seeing a movie?”

“Broccoli casserole night at home. Tuck will do anything to not be in the house for that.” supplied Danny. “Besides, it wasn't that bad. Kinda cute.” The other two paused in their slow trot to the multiplex, shared a 'you heard it too?' look, then stared at Danny. “What?”

“Nothing.” Sam grinned, almost, but not entirely maliciously, “Just that I'm in a shirt and have ovaries and yet I'm still not the girliest one in the group.”

DP-DP-DP

Hours later, after the movie and a late dinner at the Nasty Burger, Danny and Tucker stood out front of the Manson home waving to Sam as she fit her key in the door.

“Are you sure you'll be okay?” Danny asked, looking around for any sign of Skulker. With the hunter, he couldn't depend on his Ghost Alarm.

Sam got the door open and leaned casually against the door frame. “Relax; Thursdays, I'm usually down at the Skulk and Lurk for goth poetry night until past midnight. If Skulker is following my schedule, he'll be there and I'll be here.”

Danny put his hands in his pockets. “Alright, but I'm going to keep my ear bud in. If something happens, just call.”

“Yeah,” Tucker added, “Danny's top speed is a hundred and twelve miles and hour. If he goes intangible to avoid wind resistance, he can probably crack one twenty. This place is a mile and a quarter from home, so he'll be here in under a minute.”

“Less from Fenton Works.” Danny added. He missed the worried look Tucker gave him, but Sam didn't.”

Instead of starting an old argument again, Tucker coughed nervously. “Oh, and don't forget the dance tomorrow; I'm sure you want to get your hair, make-up and nails done.”

Both Sam and Danny winced at the reminder of the dance. Sam covered it with cool indifference. “Yeah, you know me sooo well, Foley. That's exactly how I want to spend my time after school; getting painted and powdered like a doll. It's just a dance, you know. Even if it is my first one.”

A small frown came to her face then and it took her a second too long to wipe it away under a sea of well trained gothy scowling. “Well,” She said at length. “It was fun being guarded by you tow today. Thanks.”

“Thanks for the movie.” Said Tucker as Danny nodded in agreement. “See ya tomorrow.”

“See ya tomorrow.” she agreed and disappeared into the house.

The two boys walked off in silence for a few minutes before Danny piped up. “It's her first dance?”

“That's what she said.”

“Well don't you think that's wrong that her first dance is just some ghostly guard detail with a complete stranger?” Danny asked, eyebrows furrowed. Over the past year, a lot of his own big moments had been ruined by ghostly interventions.

Tucker shrugged. “Okay, I see your point, but what are you going to do? Skulker's after her and if I know my ghostly obsessions, he's not going to give up until we kick him back to the Zone.”

Danny folded his arms. “Well we can at least do it right.” Realization hit him. “I can at least do it right. And I know just the person to help me...”

DP-DP-DP

“Jazz?” Danny knocked on the door of what used to be the Foley's guest bedroom, now the domain of his sister, Jasmine Fenton. He and Tucker had bunk beds in the attic.

The door opened to reveal a very puzzled Jazz. She had her long, red hair tied back and she was in a tank top and pajama pants with a thick book under her arm. Only nine at night and she was already settling in for a long night's reading.

“You don't usually come to me to talk.” She observed, her curious blue eyes overflowing with suspicion. “I usually have to stake out the attic door to get you to open up.”

Danny studied the floor, suddenly cowed. He usually did everything to avoid getting psychoanalyzed by his elder sister, but he needed her now and there was nothing he could do about it. “Um... I kind of need you to go over to Fenton Works with me.”

Jazz's eyes narrowed. “Somehow, I know you're not ready to come to terms with mom and dad leaving yet, so if this has anything to do with ghosts, I'm closing the door now.”

“No!” Danny almost panicked. “It's not ghosts, I promise. It's just... remember how we only bought the stuff we needed over here when Tuck's parent's took us in?”

Jazz nodded. Even she occasionally went back to the place to pick up something or other she hadn't thought she'd needed.

“Okay, so I kind of need to get my suit. And I don't know where it is. Mom put it away instead of letting me bury it in my closet.

“Suit?” Jazz's eyebrows went up. “What do you need a suit for?”

Danny turned red. There was no way he could tell Jazz what was really going on without her getting angry about his 'delusions' about ghost attacks. And that left only one reason he'd be going to the dance. “Um. See, there's this girl. We're not like a couple or anything, but the dance is tomorrow and...”

He didn't get any further because suddenly, Jazz was hugging him so tightly he couldn't think straight.

“Oh, Danny, this is a huge step in your social-emotional development! But look, that suit’s a year old and you've had a growth spurt. I didn't want to tell you this until you were more mature, but mom and dad did leave me a bank card for emergencies—and my little growing up definitely counts. You'll need a suit, a nice tie, shoes.. Oh! And a corsage for your date!”

Danny reddened further. This was going to downhill really fast.

DP-DP-DP

Sam stretched back on her king sized bed with her eyes closed. Her plasma screen was on with some music videos playing for white noise, but she wasn't paying any attention to it. Her mind was on the previous day and just how much fun it was.

Freshman year, coming back to school with the power to hear thoughts hadn't been fun, especially before she'd learned at least a little control over how 'loud' the thoughts were. She'd drifted away from what few friends she had because she just couldn't stand being around people any longer, now that she knew exactly when they were telling little lies to spare her feelings, or big ones to mislead her.

The Fenton Phones could change that, and she wondered if Danny and Tucker would let her keep them after the Skulker issue was over. Idly, she tapped her nails on the Specter Deflector. They could take that one though; it was heavy and cumbersome, looking like the world's ugliest and least effective chastity belt.

More than that, she wondered if the two boys would still want to hang out after Skulker was gone. The only reason they'd all spent the day together was protecting her from the hunter, but they had fun, right? She hoped she wasn't imagining it, but cause at the very least she'd had fun.

“Sammy-kins!”

Her eyes flew open. Oh no.

She heard movement in the hall; footsteps that managed to sound light and chipper and happy. Warily, she raised her head to look at her door. Had she locked it? Someone, please tell her she locked it. It was locked, right?

The door flew open to admit an immaculate vision in pink and white.

Nope. Not locked.

Pamela Manson's smile was so broad that Sam thought it had to hurt. Her teeth were so bright that the reflection washed out all the drab and dank Sam carefully cultivated in her room. If there were a vampire in the room, her presence would have been as good as the sun for burning it to ash.

“I heard the most wonderful news from Jenkins.” Pamela scurried about the room, giving disappointed looks to the band posters and other goth trappings in the room. She even opened the curtains despite it being gone past nine.

Jenkins was the butler. Technically, he was Sam's personal butler, but she'd been giving him paid days off every day since she was eleven. At this point, his only function was as her mother's spy.

“Oh no.” Sam repeated, this time out loud.

“He said that he was in the parlor and overheard that you've changed your mind about the dance!” Pamela practically floated over to her daughter. “Oh, Sammy, it's so wonderful! I just knew I was doing the right thing compromising with that hideous dress. Better you be seen in a fashion nightmare instead of not seen at all.”

Sam could only glare. There was no point in arguing that she liked that dress. Unless her mother was going to try and get her to wear a different one, it was better to sit back and let the waves of preppy enthusiasm break over her.

“So, who's the boy that's taking you? Do I know him?”

“I... just met him.” Sam said, then quickly added, “And he's just a friend.”

Pamela frowned slightly at the idea of her daughter going to the dance with someone she just met, but that was covered over b the fact that her daughter was going to the dance. “Oh. Well is he at least of good breeding?”

“I don't think he's a dog, Mother.” Sam sat up and tossed her hair, unconsciously mimicking Pamela's own 'and I'll hear no more of that kind of talk' mannerism. “Besides, he's been nothing but nice to me and that's what matters.”

A slow sigh that carried all manner of 'you are so naive' vibes escaped Pamela. “I suppose that's good enough for high school. And the staff has said you hadn't been your sour old self all evening. But if this boy is, so special, just a dress won't cut it.”

Sam blanched. “I-it won't?”

“Of course not, silly! We need to get you matching shoes and a handbag, get your hair done, your make-up—what time is the dance? I wonder if we can squeeze in a facial along with the mani-pedi, and we have to order a boutonniere for the young man. Do you know what color his suit if? Oh goodness, gracious, does he know what color your dress is? It would be a disaster if his tie doesn't match...”

DP-DP-DP

At school the next morning, Tucker was stocking his backpack with the books and notes for his morning classes when he suddenly felt a cold chill run up his spine. For a moment, he feared that there was another ghost in school, but when he turned, he found two baleful glares aimed at him, one blue and familiar, one violet and still the source of some vestiges of primal fear bubbling within him.

“Uh, hi guys.” He offered.

“I ought to kill you.” Danny and Sam said in stereo.

Tucker held up his backpack to shield himself. “What did I do?”

“This dance thing!” Danny said.

Sam picked up from him. “It was already complicated enough,”

Then Dan: “But now it's snowballing!”

“My mother is diving me crazy!”

“Jazz is driving me crazy!”

That last part was in stereo again save for the change of one word. The pair glanced at one another, shared a quick nod of solidarity, then returned their glares to Tucker.

“I've got to spend lunch being measured and stabbed with pins by a tailor!” Danny said.

“A stranger is going to wash and paint my toes.” Sam's teeth ground.

A nervous laugh escaped Tucker. He'd just expected Danny to throw on one of his own father's ties and Sam to put on whichever dress she had on over her combat boots. People went to dances casually as friends all the time, and there shouldn't have been a problem.

Alright, maybe he should have banked on Danny's hero complex to kick in when he heard that this would be Sam's first dance, but he'd only expected he might bring flowers and act the gentleman. And why the heck was Sam going all out? She was the one that had to care the least about what was going on.

Clearly, he underestimated the power of relatives meddling. Nothing to do about it now though, and it wasn't his fault at all, really. So he decided to make things worse for the deviltry of it.

“Look at it this way: at least you'll make a cute couple.”

“We are not a couple!” They said, once again with eerie synchronicity. Tucker noticed that Danny still had his ear bud in and Sam hadn't taken the Fenton Phones off and wondered if his adjustment to their frequencies to block out the psychic chaff wasn't causing that.

“We're not even actually friends.” Sam added, hissing low enough that no one else in the halls heard.

“Ah, give us some time.” Tucker summoned all his bravery and a healthy lack of good sense to reach over and pat her condescendingly on the head. “We might grow on ya.”

Before she could make him pay for that, the bell rang and it was time to get to class.

Danny and Sam had the same first period, so when she started walking, he followed, after one more glare at Tucker. A small smile quirked his features as he glanced at the still fuming girl. “Hey, look on the bright side: I have to suffer too. Misery loves company right?”

DP-DP-DP  
“Sammy-kins!” It was seven in the evening and Pamela Manson, in a rare moment of self sufficiency, was there, ready to open the door instead of letting a butler do it. As she waited, she peered out the window with an avaricious smile on her face. “Your date is here!” She sing-songed, then in her normal, chipper voice she added with great approval, “And he's in a limo!”

On the street, sitting in the back of said limo, Danny looked between a smartly dressed Tucker and Valerie Grey in her beautiful, white and yellow gown. She looked utterly indifferent, making it clear that she was only there because she didn't want to go dateless.

“So; care to explain how you got a limo?” Danny asked, hand on the door handle.

Tucker scoffed. “Danny, do you have any idea how rare it is for a techno-geek like me to go on a date with someone like Val.” He shot her a smile, she replied with a bored expression that nevertheless didn't take the wind out of Tucker's sails. “I uploaded a video file of them saying yes, and the donations came pouring in! The limo, my suit, the flowers—everything courtesy of the terminally dateless, seeking to live vicariously.”

“That is incredibly pathetic.” Valerie said.

“For them, but not for me.” Tucker said, “Or you. I promise you this is going to be a dance you won't soon forget.” He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a box, flipping it open like an old school cigarette case. “Imported, Swiss chocolates?”

Valerie’s' eyebrows shot up. “Wow. Uh, I mean, I guess it wouldn't hurt to take just one...”

Shaking his head at the interaction, Danny got out of the car. “I'll be right back.” He got out and looked up at the Manson house. There was someone peeking at him through the window and it defiantly wasn't Sam. As he walked slowly toward the door, he straightened his tie and checked to make sure he still had to corsage.

His suit was pitch black, because the only thing he knew about Sam that he could pass on to Sam regarding what dress color she might wear was that she was a goth. His undershirt was crisp white, his tie was black with silver pinstripes, and he'd snagged a silver cummerbund to cover up the Fenton Ghost Battlin' Belt.

He didn't get a chance to knock. The moment his feet hit the welcome mat, the door opened and he was pulled inside by a whirlwind of pink and khaki. The pink was Sam's mother, Pamela. The khaki (along with a crisp, white button down shirt) was her father, Jeremy.

Before he even understood what was going on, he was stood up beside Sam like some sort of life sized action figure, and half a dozen people with suspiciously professional looking cameras were blinding him with flash bulbs.

When the spots finally cleared from his eyes, he finally got to see Sam, but not as he knew her. Her dress was a ball gown with a black lace-up bodice featuring slashes of red sequins over her ribs on the right side as if she'd been attacked by some wild beast, and a blood red skirt that flared at her hips and reached down just below her knees where they were met by combat boots, but in another symbol of compromise with her mother, these were fancy combat boots, buffed to a shine with laces and treads that matched her dress. She also had opera gloves the same color, she held a black clutch purse in her hands, and her hair was worn up in twin, gelled twists that rose in frills around her head.

Danny couldn't help but stare.

Sam helpfully broke the illusion by leaning over and whispering. “They think you're rich, so they'll play nice. Try and act the part.” Out loud, she growled to her parents, “My hands and feet are completely covered, so I really want to know just why the heck I needed a mani-pedi.”

“Oh, Samantha,” said her father in a heavily stereotypical upper class accent. If anything he was even more of an opposite to his daughter, blonde, clearly stuck-up and possibly a little dim. “It's just how things are done.”

A droning noise caught Danny's attention and he looked to his left to find an old lady on a scooter looking him over with a critical eye.

“Um... hi.” He said to her, because she was the only one besides Sam that actually seemed interested in anything about him beyond his mere presence. “I'm Danny. Danny Fenton.”

Her eyebrows quirked and she shot a surreptitious and smug glance at Sam's parents. “Fenton, eh?” Danny had no idea what was so interesting, but she breezed right past that. “It's been a long time since Sam's had people over at the house. You must be pretty special.”

Danny looked to Sam for help. Sam sighed. “We're just friends, Grandma. And probably not for long. With all the flashbulbs and prodding, I wouldn't be surprised if he went all King Kong and freaked out on us.”

Danny rubbed the back of his neck and chuckled. “Nah, I'm good. Oh yeah! And...” He fished around in his pocked and brought out the plastic container, fogged over from the temperature difference inside and outside. With care, he cracked it open to reveal the corsage of small, red roses and baby's breath. “This is for you. I was going to get carnations, but I don't see you as a pink or yellow kind of girl and roses at like the only other flower I know and...”

“Thank you.” Sam said quickly to cut off his rambling, hoping the sharpness of that did a good enough job distracting from the blush at seeing that he'd bought her red roses. “That's sweet. And, I got this..” She opened the clutch purse and came out with a white carnation boutonniere, “This is for you.”

“They come in white?” Danny asked before he could stop himself.

Grandma Manson bumped into him with her shoulder. “So what are you two waiting for already? Put them on and get to the dance.”

“Right.” They said as one. They stared at each other for a second, then blushed. A moment of awkwardness went by as they tried just handing the flowers over, thought better of it, then Danny finally slipped the corsage on Sam's wrist and she pinned the boutonniere onto his lapel. All the while, the photographers snapped pictures, and a two men with video cameras covered all the angles.

By the time it was over, they were both completely frazzled., but made their way out of the house and back onto the street.

For a moment, they just stood in silence, then Danny spoke up. “I probably should have said it earlier, but-ahem-- anyway, you look really nice tonight.”

Sam smiled and relaxed a bit now that her parents weren't on top of them. “Thanks. You look nice too. You clean up well.” He nodded amiably and to her surprise, offered his arm like a Victorian gentleman. Just for the shear novelty of it, she linked her arm in his and they strolled back to the car.

“I don't get to go out much.” He confessed. “Ghosts and all. So I was thinking, for as long as Skulker doesn't wreck things, let's try and make the most of this, okay? I promise I'll try and make this the best dance I can.”

Sam hesitated. So now they were using each other? Did that make it better or worse? On the other hand, something could be said about gift horses and mouths. After Skulker was dealt with, she'd go back to being the weird loner and he'd go back to being a lonely (save for his mission control) ghost hunter. So why not just enjoy it while it lasted?

“Sure. Sounds good.”

Danny smiled and opened the door. Inside, Valerie had warmed up enough that she wasn't hurting Tucker for having his arm around her. They were both holding champagne flutes.

 

“...it's non-alcoholic, because I don't want to get arrested,” Tucker was explaining, “But it's imported and expensive.”

Glancing from that scene and Sam, Danny chuckled nervously. “Just don't ask me to compete with the entire internet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished my original stories for this week and decided to do some more work on this, because the whole of Episode 1 is already in my head. Originally, it was supposed to just be three acts, but the dance stuff and the fluff was too much fun. I'm kind of having my cake and eating it too with forcing Sam and Danny to got to the dance without actually developing their relationship. The progression of the story in future episodes will fix that. Right now, they're only doing this out of loneliness and some attraction and once the Skulker excuse is gone, they'll have to start from scratch as friends. You'll see, it'll work. Promise.
> 
> About this time, I should point out (though episode 2 will make it evident) that even though Danny's been at this for a year, none of the events of the show have happened yet in any form and he's never met any of the ghosts from the series (besides Box Ghost) yet.
> 
> But anyway, thank you all for your wonderful reviews. I hope I can live up to your expectations. Fan fiction to me is an exercise in keeping in character and tone while still being entertaining, and I hope I'm doing that.
> 
> Next Chapter: Bonding the Hard Way (Part 4) – The trio (plus one) dance the night away, but the Ghost Zone's Greatest Hunter is about to throw down some moves of his own! Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion of The Phantom Reboot, Episode 1!


	4. Episode 1: Bonding the Hard Way (Part 4)

'You will remembeeeer my naaaame!'

The song ended and some of the dancers clapped; someone even chanted the singer's name a couple of times before the next track came on.

The lights positioned around the perimeter of the gym-turned-ballroom dimmed. It was a clever set-up courtesy of the drama department; they went bright for the fast songs, contributing to the high energy and letting the chaperones get a good eye on everyone, then went down low for the slow, giving the couples some romantic privacy.

As they were dimming again now, Danny and Sam moved back over to the tables. By unspoken accord, they danced together for the higher tempo numbers and retreated to drink punch and nibble refreshments during the slow.

Sam picked up her plate of fresh fruit as Danny sat beside her, slumped in his seat while he got his breath. They both watched Tucker and Valarie still out on the dance floor. After the first hour, and about the time his internet granted gifts started to scrape bottom with a monogrammed handkerchief and a Dumpty Humpty Pez dispenser, Val decided that she was having a good enough time without being showered with increasingly esoteric gifts and they seemed to be hitting it off.

Beaming with pride for his friend, Danny turned to the girl beside him. “They look like they're having a good time... are you?”

She brushed a lock of hair out of her face before answering. “You know, I didn't think I would, but yeah.” She offered the plate. “Melon?”

Danny took a piece of pineapple instead, chewing it carefully. “Thanks. Hey, wanna see something cool?” He leaned sideways and reached into his pant's pocket.

“Sure, what?” She sat the plate down and looked on, curious.

He came up with what looked like a white plastic version of brass knuckles on. There was a flat disk of the same material, laced with blue-green streaks, attached so that it lay flat against his palm. “Well my parents seemed to love adding ecto-based technology to everything, so on a hunch, me and Tuck broke down the freezer over at Fenton Works. We're trying to work it into something more useful, but check it out, put your hand over it.”

Sam did as asked and when he flexed his palm, the temperature of the air above the disk dropped significantly. She chuckled. “Pardon the pun, but: Cool.”

“Tuck thinks—“

“Hey Fen-turd!” a painfully familiar voice interrupted. Not having time to hide the freezing device, Danny lurched his hand upward and grabbed the one Sam was holding over it. She shivered at the cold and made a sound that told Danny he would pay for that.

Moments late, Dash Baxter appeared, decked out in a powder blue tux with lace inexplicably spilling out of his sleeves and collar. Whatever threat or insult he was going to deliver, it died in his throat and was replaced by a sound like stage retching as he spied their joined hands. “Ew! You and the goth? That's too wrong for words, Fentonio.”

“Why am I the goth when there are like twenty goths in our school?” Sam asked dryly.

“That's a good question.” Danny agreed, “Just like why does he love bullying me when there's people way nerdier... like Tucker?”

Irked by Dash's words and extended act of being mortified, Sam fixed him with her absolute best glare and smirked so hard that the concept of sarcasm sat up and took notice. “Yeah, poor Danny. And to think he could have come to the dance dateless and dressed like the seventies threw up on him like you.”

Dash's teeth ground, then they chattered, because the ambient temperature suddenly dropped.

Both Danny and Sam's Ghost Alarms went off, Close Encounters of the Third Kind for him, The Imperial March for her, signaling that this cold snap had nothing to do with the machine sandwiched between their hands.

“Shall we dance?” A hard, completely serious look came over Danny's face and he practically dragged Sam out of her seat and past Dash, who was completely ignored. They got on the dance floor and began a stiff slow dance with Danny leading them across the room, one step at a time. “He's here.” He said, surreptitiously touching his ear bud. 

“Yup.” Tucker replied. “I 'accidentally' spilled a little punch on Val to get her clear. What's the game plan?”

Danny searched the dance floor for ghostly activity, still moving across the floor. He pulled Sam a little tighter. “We're going over to the corner where the bleachers are rolled back. It's the only really dark place where I can transform. When I do, you keep an eye on Sam and have the thermos ready.”

“'Keep an eye on Sam'?” Sam demanded. “I'm not a puppy, Danny. I can take care of myself—I stole that ecto-saber thing from Tucker.” She shook her clutch purse as proof.

“Look, I know you can take care of yourself, but...” He looked into her eyes and read that expression. “... I'm not going to get you to stay out of this, am I?”

“Not a chance.”

He sighed. “Okay, but remember: Skulker is powerful and wants you dead. Not me or Tuck, you. Just... be careful, okay?”

“Deal.” She grinned ferally and reached into her bag just as they arrived at the dark corner.

Skulker rose up out of the center of the dance floor, his flaming hair illuminating the darkened room. “My prey may have eluded me for two days, but every whelp in the city is here.” He spoke to himself, ignoring the panicking crowd of teenagers that began to scream and flee at his presence. “No, Skulker, the Ghost Zone's Greatest Hunter, will finally claim his trophy!”

Sam saw a small smirk form on Danny's own lips and thought that maybe she should convince him to go goth.

“And we...” He reached down under his cummerbund and turned the dial on the Ghost Battlin' Belt. “Are go..” The black and silver mass of energy swirled up over him, replacing Danny Fenton with the ghostly hero, Danny Phantom. As the finishing touch, he slipped on his goggles. “For ghosts!”

An electrical tingle ran up Sam's arms where they''d still been touching and she let go of him quickly.

A cocky grin came to his face and he inclined his head toward her. “I've never had a literal victory dance before, so save the last one for me, okay?” And then he was gone, a flying streak that homed in on Skulker with a green glowing fist.

“Hey Skulker! Last time you caught me at a bad time. Let's see how tough you are when I'm at full power!” He caught the hunter turning around and hit him squarely in the gut, sending him stumbling back across the dance floor. Before he could recover, Danny let him have it with a pair of fully charged ghost rays that slammed him against the bleachers on the other side of the room.

“Sam!” Tucker ducked and dodged fleeing students and chaperones to make his way over to her. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” she said and pulled out the ecto-saber. “By the way, 'we are go for ghosts'? Did you come up with that?”

“Not me.” Tucker looked thoughtful. “Danny's dad always said it before running off to investigate a haunting. The guy was kind of goofy, but in a good way. So try not to give him a hard time over it, okay?”

Sam nodded, following the fight across from them. “Got it. So let's get in there and help.” She started forward only to find a hand on her shoulder, holding her back.

“That's not actually how it works. Granted, Skulker is the baddest thing we've come up against, but as a general rule, Danny and his belt can handle it. My job is to get people clear, and your job is to not let Skulker catch you and make sure the...” He glanced down at her waist. “... you didn't wear the Specter Deflector?!”

“My mom wouldn't let me wear that thing with my dress.” She waved the ecto-saber in front of his face. “But I do have this though.”

Meanwhile, Skulker had pulled himself free of the bleachers and was pouring green fire into the air as Danny zipped along the ceiling. “Quite the celebration these humans have here, Inviso Bill. I especially enjoyed the music, but I especially enjoy the hitting people.”

“And yet, you're not that good at it yourself.” Danny called back as he looped around and tagged Skulker with another ghost ray that blew off one of the hunter's mounted guns.

Skulker smirked. “Then you really know nothing about hunting.” Missile racks extended from his shoulders and under his arms. “A key strategy is tiring your prey out!” A dozen missiles streaked out from him and started to home in on Danny.

“Where are you hiding all those weapons?” Danny demanded, juking away from one missile, then shooting down two more with ghost rays before turning intangible to let another pass through him. Eyes narrowing behind his goggles, he dove for Skulker, zipping around even more missiles in the process.

The hunter smiled grimly and raised a palm. A whip of coiled metal shot out, extending three prongs at the end that crackled with electricity. Danny tried to dodge, but it writhed like a serpent and hit him directly in the forehead.

Danny screamed as energy coursed through him. It lasted only a moment that stretched on forever, then he dropped to the floor, breathing shallowly. There was something white-hot in his ear and he frantically dug it out: the ear bud, now on the verge of melting.

Danny!

“Huh?” He croaked. “Sam?”

“Not even close.” Danny looked up in time to see Skulker barging toward him. There wasn't enough time to dodge the brutal kick the ghost sent to his chest, and he went flying into the buffet table, scattering fruit, cheese cubes, and deli meats everywhere. The punch bowl landed on his head, temporarily washing his vision red.

Skulker didn't let up, sending a powerful ghost ray his way that sent him skidding across the floor until he wound up partially embedded in the wall.

“It's for the best, I suppose.” Skulker said in an arrogant tone as he approached the reeling ghost hunter. “I was going to have to destroy you eventually anyway.” A nasty weapon with a red glowing barrel unfolded from the back of his arm and he aimed it at Danny's head. “Goodbye, Inviso Bill.”

There was a green flash and the weapon was split in half.

“What?” Skulker looked over his shoulder to find Sam Manson standing there, the green light of the ecto-saber reflecting dangerously in her eyes and making her pale skin seem green as she brought the weapon up into a ready position. “And here I thought that I was the only unique and exotic prey you were interested in. Careful, Skulker; you might make me jealous. And you wouldn't like me when I'm jealous.”

A grin split Skulker's face and he turned fully toward her, deploying his net launcher. “Don't think I haven't forgotten about you, whelp.”

There was a tap on his shoulder. Danny had recovered in the interim and floated defiantly behind him. “Hey, I don't know when you died, so I've gotta ask: ever play video games?”

Skulker turned back toward him partially, aware that he was now flanked. “What are you babbling on about? I didn't hit you that har—“

Danny bobbed down to the floor, ignited one fist with ghostly energy that manifested as a green flame, then shot upwards at full speed, corkscrewing in the air as he delivered a flaming uppercut the a steely jaw. “No reason.” somewhere in the gym, Tucker applauded.

The hit unbalanced Skulker completely and he lurched backward. For her part, Sam sidestepped him and slashed the ecto-saber through his left knee, severing the leg. With no leg to catch him, Skulker came down like a felled tree, hitting the floor with a resounding, metallic crash.

Not wasting a second, Danny flew up above him and drew back his hands to his side. A globe of ecto-energy began to build between his them.

Sam looked on with a quirked eyebrow as Tucker rushed up to her. “Is he...”

“It was going to be a Hadoken, but Danny can't keep his wrists together for some reason.” Tucker shrugged. “Oh, and he's your hunter, so you get to do that honors.” He passed her the Fenton Thermos.

She turned the thing over in her hands, confused.

Above them, Danny finished charging his attack and sent a ghost ray as big around as his waist down onto the prone Skulker. The ghost shouted in rage as the force of the blast tore his armor apart, scattering it across the gym floor.

What was left when the shockwave subsided was a small, green blob on stick-like legs that glared up at them murderously. “You can't defeat me!” it squeaked. “This was only a setback! I am Skulker!, the Ghost Zone's Greatest Hunter! I will sew your pelts into a quilt of doom!”

Sam couldn't hold in her laugh. “That's Skulker?”

“I didn't see that coming either.” Danny agreed.

As Skulker continued to rant, Sam looked down at the Thermos. “So how do I use this thing?”

“Take off the top, aim, and hit that button on the side.” explained Tucker. “It's a simple point and click interface.”

With a malicious sneer, Sam towered over Skulker. “Can't say I didn't want you little guy.” She aimed the Thermos, watching the fear dawn on the creature's face as the aperture glowed blue. “And as I've always said, stupidity should be painful.”

She hit the button and a howling vortex of blue energy swept out to engulf Skulker, dragging the screaming ghost into the Thermos. As she replaced the cap, Skulker's armor faded from view, leaving the gym empty except for the trio and a jumpy dance mix still playing on the sound system.

“Whew.” said Tucker, taking the Thermos from Sam. “Glad that's over.” Suddenly, his eyes widened. Oh no! I've got to go find Val and see if she's okay!” With that, he bolted from the room.

Sam and Danny watched him go, then stood quietly, listening to the song.

“So...” Sam said and offered him the ecto-saber. “I guess this is yours again. Do you mind if I keep the Fenton Phones though?”

“Why wouldn't you?” Danny asked, quizzically. He reached down and switched the dial on his belt to off. The jumpsuit became less sharp and defined before melting away from his body and retreating into the hidden nozzles in the belt buckle. Within seconds, he was back to a well dressed Danny Fenton.

She looked away. Because Skulker was gone and there wasn't a reason for them to pretend to hang out anymore. Because midnight was coming and the coach would turn into a pumpkin and life would go back to being mundane and lonely again. She would have to remember that for the next poetry night.

“You know, there's no reason we can't keep hanging out.” Danny pushed the ecto-saber back into her hands. “I had a good time the past few days—minus the suit fitting of course, and I know Tucker's still getting over the biting and the monkey bars, but he enjoyed himself too.”

“Really?” She asked, mood lightening. “So it wasn't just because you didn't want my death on your hands?”

Danny shook is head. “Of course not. Okay, yeah, at first, but it was fun and I think we should keep doing it.”

They smiled at one another and the next song came up. The lights dimmed.

Removing his hand from her shoulder, Danny rubbed the back of his head. “So, the dance is over at eleven. It's ten fifty-five. Time for one last dance?”

Sam remembered the pseudo-slow dance they'd shared while maneuvering to where Danny could change and blushed a little. She couldn't help noticing he did too-at the exact same time. “Um.... sure.”

Without the adrenaline rush caused by the presence of a rampaging ghost, they didn't dance as closely, or intensely as when Danny was just trying to get them across the gym, but it surprised them how not-quite-awkward it was.

“I agreed,” Danny suddenly said. “For a situation started by a murderous dead guy, this did turn out pretty well.”

Sam's eyes widened in shock. “Um... Danny? I didn't say that out loud.”

DP-DP-DP

[Because a lot of other episodic fics do their own title cards, I will too. This one comes at the end, but in future episodes, they’ll come after the cold open.]

EPISODE 1 – BONDING THE HARD WAY

Danny and Tucker are in their suits with sunglasses on and arms folded with Sam in a generic gown cringes and looks behind her at a towering Skulker aiming a huge gun at her.

The tagline reads: It will CAPTURE your attention!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand Done. Firs episode in the can. A-booyah.
> 
> So that was Episode 1 of the Phantom Reboot. I hope you've enjoyed our presentation and look forward to any review you'd like to send in. I'm not sure when the next episode will be up because a new month is coming up and I've got obligations with my original fiction over at descedantsserial com, but I do have ideas on where this will be going and have places for Vlad, Dani and Ember at least.
> 
> Next Chapter: Episode 2: A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Share – Sam is trying to deal with both having real friends again and her new psychic link with Danny, which isn't easy because not only is Danny abusing the novelty of it, but Team Phantom finds themselves fending off a massive ghost animal invasion of Amity Park! Can the newly formed trio learn to work as a team, or will Sam be forced to make Danny into a real ghost just to get some peace and quiet? Find out in our next thrilling episode!

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings! For those of you waiting for updates on Mayhem in Mexico City or X-men: REset, rest assured that I'm working on them. I just entered the Danny Phandom and just had a bolt from the blue for this one. Credit for inspiration here goes to Silver Sheryl and her story 'Danny Phantom's Original Concept'.
> 
> I'm not being quite as loyal to the original though; Danny still has his powers (of a sort), there's no Spooky, but the psychic link will be coming up shortly.
> 
> This is all a massive, experimental AU and I still haven't seen the whole series, so please forgive any incongruities. But then again, it's an AU, so changes are to be expected.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy this and I'd appreciate hearing form you if you do. And if you like this fic, please check out my original superhero series, The Descendants (linked in my profile)
> 
> Next Episode: Bonding the Hard Way (Part 2) -- After another clash with the Ghost Zone's Greatest Hunter, the not quite minted trio holes up in Fenton Works. The boys learn Sam's secret, and form a plan that Sam is not happy about.


End file.
